


a love affair of fireflies

by lesbianbettycooper



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Bonding, Captain Yamaguchi Tadashi, Denial of Feelings, Fluff, Haircuts, M/M, Minor Hinata Shouyou/Tsukishima Kei, Third Year Kageyama Tobio, Third Year Yamaguchi Tadashi, Vice-Captain Kageyama Tobio
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-22
Updated: 2020-12-22
Packaged: 2021-03-10 16:27:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28230144
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lesbianbettycooper/pseuds/lesbianbettycooper
Summary: Tadashi can’t do this. He doesnothave a crush on Kageyama and he doesnotwant to date him. He does not want to take Kageyama’s face in his hands and kiss the smile at the corner of his mouth. And he does not want to push his hair back so that he can gaze into his eyes. And hedefinitelydoes not want to hear his laugh a million more times. He does not want to doanyof this.Screw you, Sugawara,Tadashi thinks spitefully.or; yamaguchi is stubborn but still lets kageyama's sister give him a haircut
Relationships: Kageyama Miwa & Kageyama Tobio, Kageyama Miwa & Yamaguchi Tadashi, Kageyama Tobio/Yamaguchi Tadashi
Comments: 8
Kudos: 231





	a love affair of fireflies

**Author's Note:**

> WELL. i like them what can i say :]
> 
> title from follow through by the altogether bc i think its very ymymcore

*—*

Tadashi Yamaguchi doesn’t want to date Tobio Kageyama. No matter what the people around him are saying. No matter what fleeting thoughts sometimes cross his mind. He does  _ not _ want to date him. Miwa Kageyama seems to think that he  _ does _ .

Salons — Tadashi finds out quickly — are not places that boys with Not Crushes on other boys should go. Especially not when the person doing your hair is your Not Crush’s sister.

“So…” Miwa begins, parting Tadashi’s hair down the middle. “How long have you known Tobio? Just from Karasuno?”

He wants to scratch at his nails, pull the polish there off. But then he imagines Yachi’s pinched face and thinks better of it. He resorts to tracing the lines of his palm instead.

“Yeah, just from Karasuno.”

“Sure, great, awesome.”

There’s a brief moment of silence before Miwa starts talking about other things, apparently deciding that this won’t go anywhere. Tadashi untenses, sits back in his chair and lets Miwa work.

She’s a good talker. Never saying too much but refusing to let any lulls or pauses get awkward. She hardly ever talks in circles and she laughs, a lot.

It’s strange that the person grinning at him in the mirror is Kageyama’s sister. Though  _ Akiteru _ is Tsukki’s brother, so it shouldn’t be too surprising. It still is though and, while he tries not to, Tadashi can’t help trying to imagine them when they were younger. He gets as far as black hair and blue eyes and pale round faces before he gives up.

“My girlfriend lives in Tokyo,” Miwa complains, snipping at Tadashi’s wet hair as he hums sympathetically. “She comes down sometimes and I go up there but it’s not as easy as we pretend it is.”

“How long have you been together?”

“Like a year and a half now,” she sighs and leans down, kind of conspiratory-like and Tadashi tilts his head to hear her. “I’m thinking about moving up there, maybe. Is that crazy?”

Tadashi has the feeling that Miwa is just making conversation, that she’s already parsed all of the information in her head and made a decision. He thinks she’s probably just asking him to get a feel of what he’s like, he answers earnestly anyway.

“I don’t think it’s crazy. If you lived in the same city, you would probably be living together right now, right? So, I don’t think it’s some ridiculous leap,” he cracks one of his thumb knuckles and furrows his brow. “Although maybe you shouldn’t move all the way to Tokyo without a plan.”

Miwa catches his eye in the mirror and smiles, “You’re pretty good at advice, you know that?”

Tadashi’s face feels a little warm but he shrugs, “I’m a captain, I sort of have to be.”

“Oh! You’re Karasuno’s captain? How exciting.”

Tadashi laughs, “It’s kind of a handful but Kageyama, er, Tobio’s a good vice captain.”

Miwa’s smile goes a little softer at the edges and she stares intently at Tadashi’s hair. “As expected,” she says and then after a second adds, “I’m glad.”

He traces the line at the top of his palm for a moment before asking, “Do you play volleyball, Miwa-san?”

For a split second, Tadashi feels Miwa’s hand still in his hair and catches her smile freeze on her face. But the moment passes quickly and she shrugs, “I used to. Not anymore, though.”

“What position did you play?” Tadashi asks, half a second before he realises he should have just moved on from this topic.

“Setter,” she says after a little while. 

“Ah! Like Kageyama!”

“Yeah,” she smiles, fondly like a parent more than a sister. “I was, like,  _ really good _ . Better than Tobio, even.”

“Woah…” Tadashi tries to imagine it, someone better than Kageyama at setting. Miya Atsumu comes to mind, Oikawa Tooru too. But Kageyama has been at his best this year, better than anyone Tadashi has ever met and the idea of someone surpassing him is hard to grasp.

“But… you know. I don’t play anymore. So, it doesn’t really matter.”

Tadashi thinks he hears something thick like regret in her voice. It’s overwhelming, the wave of guilt he feels when he sees her blinking rapidly. He turns in his chair and opens his mouth to apologise when the salon door swings open, letting a rush of hot air in.

Kageyama is flushed from the summer sun and he’s got a Shimada Mart bag clutched in one of his hands. He pushes a pair of sunglasses — Tadashi is pretty sure they belong to Nishinoya which means Kageyama took them from Hinata — onto the top of his head and then sighs. Tadashi almost puts his head in his hands. Instead, he gives a tiny wave.

“Sorry I’m late,” Kageyama mutters, pulling up his shirt to wipe sweat from his face and kicking the door closed behind him. “Hinata was,” he grunts and waves his hand instead of finishing his sentence. Tadashi smiles, fond and sweet, at his friend.

He leaves his sandals by the door, padding across the cool floor barefoot, tossing his sunglasses on the counter and placing the plastic bag in front of Tadashi. It spills open and inside, there’s a box of Hello Panda (chocolate ones) and three bottles of water — two as Kageyama takes one and drinks half of it immediately. Tadashi just stares at the bag, somewhat dumbfounded.

“I’ve seen Tsukishima buy them for you,” Kageyama says as if he can read Tadashi’s mind. “They’re an apology, for leaving you alone with her for so long.”

Miwa lets out an offended noise and Kageyama just smiles, tiny and barely a tilt to his lips but a smile nonetheless.

“Don’t apologise! It’s not as if I’m some awful burden, Tobio!” Miwa shouts, pointing her comb at him threateningly, lessened by the fact that she’s grinning as she says it.

Tadashi covers his mouth to hide his smile and stifle his laugh but Miwa sees anyway. 

“And don’t you laugh, Tadashi! We’ve had a wonderful time, you and I!”

“We have! We have!” he says through his laughter. “I promise we have!”

And then Tadashi hears a very startling sound to his right. Kageyama sits sideways in the chair next to Tadashi’s and he is  _ laughing _ . An actual laugh. Not just an exhale of breath or a smiling ‘hm.’ Actual Real Life Laughter Where Actual Real Life Sound Comes Out Of His Actual Real Life Mouth.

Tadashi can’t do this. He does  _ not _ have a crush on Kageyama and he does  _ not _ want to date him. He does not want to take Kageyama’s face in his hands and kiss the smile at the corner of his mouth. And he does not want to push his hair back so that he can gaze into his eyes. And he definitely does  _ not _ want to hear his laugh a million more times. He does not want to do  _ any _ of this.

_ Screw you, Sugawara,  _ Tadashi thinks spitefully.

_ (“When you and Kageyama start dating then you’ll see, Yamaguchi,” Sugawara teased as he sipped on his sickeningly sweet coffee, his reading glasses all fogged up from the steam. “It’s the curse of the Captain and their Vice Captain, you always end up making out. It’s like a prophecy or something.” _

_ “No, we won’t!” Tadashi had refused for the both of them — Kageyama hadn’t said anything at all. “Neither of us are stupid enough to fall prey to your sick little matchmaking game!” _

_ Suga-san laughed, flicked his pen on the table twice, and then said, “Whatever you say.”) _

Tadashi takes a deep breath, looking back to the bag and then down at his hands. Miwa tsks before turning back to Tadashi. She smiles at him in the mirror and raises her eyebrows as she brings out the electric clippers.

Somehow, even over the loud buzz, conversation continues as it did before.

Kageyama and Miwa don’t really talk like siblings, Tadashi notices. Or, at least, not like any of the siblings that he knows. They’re kind of unfamiliar in the way they talk to each other, a little detached and not really trying to bridge that gap. 

It’s not uncomfortable or awkward, Miwa teases and Kageyama laughs and they make an active effort not to shut Tadashi out of the conversation. But it’s not like Akiteru and Tsukki — who, even at their furthest apart, always seemed like brothers — and it’s not like the Tanaka’s or the Hinata’s either. It’s more like they’re cousins or Miwa is Kageyama’s young aunt or something.

Tadashi didn’t know that people who lived in the same house could seem as…  _ estranged _ as the Kageyama’s do. He tries not to think of it so much, tries not to wonder what the cause of the distance was or if they’ve just never been close. Then he changes his mind and instead tries to remember if Kageyama has ever let something slip.

Miwa laughs and Tadashi realises that the clippers aren’t buzzing anymore. He looks up from the stars Yachi painted on his nails to find two sets of blue eyes peering at him.

“Sorry,” Miwa starts, meeting his eyes in the mirror with a smile that sort of puts him on edge. “Are we boring you, Tadashi-kun?”

He startles, spluttering as he tries to explain and apologise and avoid her eyes. He’s almost gotten the word ‘sorry’ out when he feels a hand on his shoulder. Tadashi stops stuttering and turns to stare at the owner of the hand.

“She’s only teasing, Captain,” Kageyama tells him, stretching over the arm of his chair — which got pulled closer to Tadashi’s at some point.

“Ah,” Tadashi breathes a sigh of relief, swallowing hard but cracking a smile when Miwa pats his head. “Right. Of course.”

Kageyama’s hand is warm, not overly hot or damp or anything weird like that. It’s just…warm, and nice. It’s a soft weight that makes everything simultaneously a little clearer and a little more fuzzy at the edges. Suddenly, he squeezes Tadashi’s arm and then pulls away to sit back down. 

Tadashi can still feel a phantom hand on his shoulder and he hears his heart in his ears and he feels so ridiculous. Because this is  _ ridiculous _ . This is not something that just happens, you don’t just look at someone and feel your heart beat a little bit faster. But Tadashi looks at Kageyama and sees the little smile at the corner of his mouth and he thinks his heart could burst out of his chest.

He tries, for a moment, to channel Tsukki. Pretend that all of this is nothing and that his sweaty palms are just because of the smock he’s wearing and the summer heat. Tsukki always seems so cool and collected — of course, Tadashi knows that couldn’t be further from the truth and Tsukki is a lying liar but it’s how he  _ seems, _ anyway. 

Still, that method doesn’t last long, because his mind conjures up the image of Hinata with his feet tucked under Tsukki’s thighs and their hands clasped together and Natsu’s dolls scattered across the floor in front of them and he thinks that, maybe, it would be nice to do that with Kageyama too.  _ Ugh _ . It’s no use. 

He almost sighs aloud, swinging his legs and making idle chit chat when Miwa exclaims lets out a loud “oh!” and rushes to do something she forgot about.

And then it’s just the two of them and Kageyama is laughing, just a quiet little bit, at his sister’s expense. And Tadashi finds himself smiling at him because, no matter how he tries to refute it, it  _ is _ nice to spend time together.

“My sister likes you,” Kageyama says, glancing towards the back room that Miwa ran into. “I’m glad.”

Tadashi smiles, bright and wide, “I’m glad too.”

And Kageyama returns his smile, not as wide but just as bright.

Miwa returns then, shaking her head with a sigh and picking up her scissors again. It goes quickly after that, Miwa finishes his haircut and when Tadashi tries to pay, she refuses outright.

“No, no, no,” she says with her hands on her hips. “I told you already this was for my apprenticeship, you don’t need to pay. And besides, your company was payment enough.”

Tadashi laughs and marvels again at the stark differences between the two siblings. Tadashi promises to visit again and Kageyama holds the door open in an attempt to cut their third round of goodbyes short. They grimace as they step into the late afternoon sun, not as hot as earlier but still sticky and gross.

Tadashi kicks a pebble along as they walk towards his house and he shifts the backpack on his back, smiles as he thinks of the Hello Panda box within. 

They don’t really talk as they walk. It’s quiet, comfortable. Not like they’ve exhausted all of their possible conversations but like there’s simply no need to speak. It’s just the two of them, walking a little too close in the heat.

_ It really is nice,  _ Tadashi thinks as he drinks from the water that Kageyama got for him.  _ To spend time with him. To be around him. It’s… nice. _

They walk a while longer in relative silence, until Tadashi can see the intersection that comes before the street his family home is on. When suddenly, Kageyama shatters the calmness surrounding them.

“Have you been avoiding me?” he asks the pavement, watching the ground and stepping over every crack in it. 

Tadashi stops walking. Kageyama does too. There’s a crack between them.

“Because of what Sugawara-san said? Right?”

Tadashi grimaces. He  _ has _ been thinking about it since it happened.  _ Three Full Months Ago. _ And he has been a little… cold lately. He won’t say that though.

“Well, I see you at practice every day, so… it’s not really  _ avoiding _ ,” Tadashi reasons, rubbing sheepishly at the back of his neck and then waving his hands like he’s defending himself. “And! Today! This was not avoid-y at all! I spent most of the day with you and you sister!”

Kageyama hums, stares at some place above Tadashi’s head and then says, “We don’t walk home together anymore.”

Tadashi drops his hands. “What?”

“After practice, we usually walk home tog-”

“No,” Tadashi interrupts softly. “I know that part. I mean. I guess I didn’t realise you cared about that.”

Kageyama glances away, wrings the strap of his bag between his hands as he shrugs. “Well. I do.”

Tadashi smiles, kicking his pebble to the side and stepping over the crack. Kageyama looks back at him when he takes a deep breath.

“Fuck it,” Tadashi laughs, putting his hands on either side of Kageyama’s face like he’s wanted to for weeks now. “Let’s fulfil a prophecy.”

*—*

**Author's Note:**

> so yamayama is something that became SO personal to me out of nowhere and i don't know why i love them sooooo much but i do. this has been sitting in my google drive for like a month bc i'm not that happy with it but. it's whatever. 3rd year ymkg canon, furudate told me so <3
> 
> talk to me about them on twitter @ feroferltas if you want!


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